FOTP 2013 Full Report

sized cities has been affected by economic problems. The result in some areas has been a sharingof resources, including journalistic staff, among competing stations.The decline in coverage offered by traditional media has been partly offset by the growthof cable television and internet journalism. Approximately 81 percent of Americans used theinternet in 2012. In 2010, for the first time, Americans who identified their primary source ofnews as the internet outnumbered those who relied most on newspapers. The number andinfluence of websites and blogs have grown rapidly over the past decade, and more recently,social-media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have gained prominence as a means ofbreaking news and mobilizing public opinion on political and policy issues. Indeed, a survey bythe Pew Research Center found that the internet was the third most frequently used source fornews about the 2012 presidential campaign, trailing only cable news networks and localtelevision news, and far exceeding newspapers.UruguayStatus: FreeLegal Environment: 8Political Environment: 10Economic Environment: 8Total Score: 26Survey Edition 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012Total Score, Status 30,F 26,F 25,F 25,F 26,FThe 1967 constitution provides for press freedom and freedom of expression, and thegovernment generally respects these rights. Uruguay’s legal framework for the media isconsidered one of the best in the Americas, with effective community media regulations andlaws protecting access to information. However, some statutes continue to present obstacles tojournalists.Laws protecting the privacy of children may be overzealously applied. In September2012, the Institute for Children and Adolescents (INAU), an executive branch agency, placed alien on the facilities of the newspaper El Heraldo in the city of Florida and fined it $5,300 forviolating the Childhood and Adolescence Code. The code purports to protect minors’ right toprivacy and, as of 2006, moved sanctioning power for infractions from the courts to INAU itself,meaning penalties can be imposed without judicial review, according to the Inter American PressAssociation. At issue in the El Heraldo case was a 2008 article that mentioned the nickname of aminor who had been charged with murder and several armed robberies. Officials at INAUclaimed that the article identified the youth, who allegedly had been involved in gang activity.The newspaper’s editor said it would no longer write about minors and accused the governmentof seeking to quash negative news.An initiative to decriminalize defamation in 2009 was left incomplete, and reportersremain vulnerable to prosecution. Articles about “dirty war” crimes by officials duringUruguay’s right-wing dictatorship (1973–1985) still occasionally prompt reprisals againstjournalists. In March 2012, lawyers for Juan Carlos Larcebeau, a naval officer charged withhuman rights violations from that period, petitioned to bring criminal defamation charges against401